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How big of a threat is North Korea?

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Under the leadership of 33-year-old Kim Jong Un, who came to power upon his father’s death in 2011, the pace of North Korean nuclear and missile tests has accelerated dramatically. His tyrannical regime now has an estimated 20 nuclear warheads — and is adding a new weapon to that stockpile every six weeks or so, experts believe.

North Korea has already successfully mounted a small nuclear warhead on a 1,500 km–range Rodong missile that can reach South Korea and Japan — and is on course to develop 13,000 km–range intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the continental U.S. by early next decade, according to observers at Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. ignores North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal — and the instability of its erratic leader — at its peril, says Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Just because Pyongyang wants us to pay attention,” Fitzpatrick told The Economist, “that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.”

The U.N. Security Council has just passed the toughest sanctions in two decades. However, the success of the sanctions will depend almost entirely on China — Pyongyang’s most influential ally, and the nation with which it does 90 percent of its trade. If the North Korean regime collapses, experts agree, there will be absolute chaos. There would be widespread looting by the country’s starving citizens, and violence in the gulags holding the country’s 120,000 political prisoners. Millions of people would rush the border into China, and South Korean and U.S. troops would be forced to occupy a devastated and dysfunctional country.

In his final days, Kim might choose to pass the nuclear weapons under his control to terrorists — or even launch them himself, as a final act of suicidal revenge. The regime’s collapse would probably spark a brutal civil war with very high stakes, says North Korea expert Andrei Lankov — like “Syria with nukes.”

[The Week]

China commentary on THAAD deployment by US

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[Xinhua commentary] – With the installation of an anti-missile missile system that can hardly cover Seoul but is able to spy on China and Russia’s Far East, the United States aims to defend nobody in East Asia, but its insatiable appetite for hegemony and military advantage.

The hidden agenda of Uncle Sam in deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) on the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula is perfectly based on its excuse of a so-called “missile threat” from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which is deemed as “rogue state” and “axis of evil” by Washington.

Defending allies from bullying by missiles of a “rogue state” naturally strengthens Washington’s moral high ground. Nevertheless, the reality is far less noble than what Uncle Sam portraits.

The fact that THAAD shields all U.S. barracks on the peninsula while leaving Seoul and its surrounding cities housing almost half of the country’s population unprotected completely unmasks Uncle Sam’s hidden agenda.

For starters, deploying THAAD in South Korea is a crucial step to heal the Achilles heel of Washington’s anti-missile missile system in the Asia Pacific, which has long been nagged by its inadequate recognition ability.

With the help of THAAD’s X band radar commanding surveillance of an area that extends over 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) from the peninsula, i.e. almost half of China’s territory and the southern part of Russia’s Far East, the United States can effectively and immediately raise the recognition accuracy.

The second part of Washington’s hidden agenda also concerns with the X band radar: If deployed, THAAD could help the U.S. army to collect radar data of warheads and decoys of China and Russia’s strategic missiles by monitoring their experiments, thus enable the United States to neutralize their nuclear deterrence.

For all that, deploying THAAD in South Korea to encounter the so-called “missile threat” from a “rogue state” is yet another self-directed and self-acted Hollywood-style drama of Uncle Sam. What lies under the savior’s costume is clear and simple — his strategic anxiety and sateless appetite for supremacy and upper hand.

North Korea will have America’s most advanced missile system in its backyard

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The most advanced missile system on the planet, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), can hunt and blast incoming missiles right out of the sky with a reportedly 100% success rate — and it appears to be headed to North Korea’s backyard.

“North Korea’s continued development of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction require the alliance to take this prudent, protective measure to bolster our layered and effective missile defense,” US Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of US forces in South Korea, said in a statement.

“Oh, it’s going to happen. It’s a necessary thing,” US Defense Secretary Ash Carter had earlier said during a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Meanwhile, satellite imagery indicates a high-level of activity at North Korea’s nuclear test site to ensure the facility is always ready for use on any orders from Pyongyang, a US think-tank said. The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said images from July 7 of the Punggye-ri site show what appear to be supplies and/or equipment stacked next to the North Portal where the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January.

“Based on imagery alone, it is not possible to determine whether this activity is for maintenance, excavation or preparation for a fifth nuclear test”, it said Monday on its website 38 North. “Nevertheless, it is clear that North Korea is ensuring that the facility is in a state of readiness that would allow the conduct of future nuclear tests should the order come from Pyongyang,” it added.

[Yahoo News]

North Korea warns of a ‘physical response’ if US missile deployment continues

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South Korea and the U.S. are reportedly close to finalizing military locations for the THAAD anti-missile defense system in South Korea.

North Korea’s military warned of “physical response measures from us as soon as the location and time that the invasionary tool for U.S. world supremacy, THAAD, will be brought into South Korea,” Reuters reports.

According to the Associated Press, South Korea’s deputy defense minister, Yoo Jeh Seung, told a nationally televised news conference Friday that Seoul and Washington would quickly deploy the system because North Korea’s growing weapons capabilities pose a big threat to the region.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have grown since last month, when Pyongyang successfully sent a mid-range ballistic missile more than 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) high. Analysts say this means that North Korea has made progress in its ambition to be able to strike at American forces in the region.

North Korea, which frequently makes grandiose threats, has warned that it will turn South Korea “into a sea of fire and a pile of ashes” if the THAAD deployment goes ahead.

[TIME]

North Korea no longer a smoker’s paradise

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North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases and where leader Kim Jong-un is hardly ever seen without a lit cigarette in his hand, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit.

Ri Yong-ok, a 57-year-old pharmacist whose heavy-smoking husband nearly died of lung cancer, is leading the charge. Her small anti-smoking center that she manages in Pyongyang has something you almost never see in the North — a no-smoking sign placed prominently above its entrance.

The potential health benefit to the nation could be tremendous. Ri estimated about 54 per cent of adult male North Koreans smoke — a higher figure than the 43.9 per cent given by a World Health Organization report released at the end of 2014.

North Korea has toyed with the idea of pushing harder to get smokers to kick the habit before — Ri’s humble anti-smoking center has been around since 2007. But it has stepped up its effort to at least provide more education of smoking’s health risks since an anti-smoking decree was made by Kim in April.

The start of the new drive prompted speculation in the foreign media that Kim himself had quit, since cigarettes were conspicuously missing from his hands in photos carried by the state media of his “on-the-spot guidance” visits around the country from around that time. The buzz didn’t last long. He was pictured smoking on a visit to a children’s camp in June.

[AP]

Why North Korea won’t abandon its nukes

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The top North Korean official for U.S. relations told The Associated Press on Friday that his country is now a nuclear threat to be reckoned with, and Washington can expect more nuclear tests and missile launches like the ones earlier this week as long as it attempts to force his government’s collapse through a policy of pressure and punishment.

“It’s the United States that caused this issue,” Han Song Ryol, director-general of the department of U.S. affairs at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said in his first interview with an American news organization since assuming the post three years ago. “They have to stop their military threats, sanctions and economic pressure. Without doing so, it’s like they are telling us to reconcile while they are putting a gun to our forehead.”

Han defended the North’s test-launching on Wednesday of two medium-range ballistic missiles. Foreign military experts believe that, once perfected, such missiles could deliver nuclear warheads to U.S. bases in Japan and possibly to major U.S. military installations as far away as the Pacific island of Guam, where long-range U.S. Air Force bombers are deployed. The tests indicated technological advances in the North’s missile capabilities.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said U.S. policy calling for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula hasn’t changed. He said, “We urge the North to take the necessary steps to prove that they’re willing to return to the six-party talk process, so that we can get to that goal.”

Han dismissed the criticism, saying North Korea has no choice but to build up its military deterrent as long as the world’s largest superpower — and the country that first developed nuclear weapons — remains an enemy. He noted that the U.S. recently deployed nuclear-powered submarines and strategic bombers capable of dropping nuclear weapons on North Korea to the region, and earlier this year conducted training for precision airstrikes on North Korea’s leadership, along with simulations of an advance into the capital, Pyongyang, with the South Korean military during joint annual exercises.

He held out the possibility of dialogue with the United States, but only if Washington agrees to “drop its hostile policies,” replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a lasting peace treaty, and withdraw its troops based in South Korea.

[AP]

UN sanctions usually fail

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To rein in countries like North Korea … global powers are boosting their reliance on United Nations sanctions aimed at forcing recalcitrant a government to drop weapons programs, stop attacking their civilians or respect the results of elections. They usually fail.

Countries should be wary of seeing sanctions as a magic bullet, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recently said in a speech. “We must guard against the impulse to reach for sanctions too lightly or in situations where they will have negligible impact,” Lew said.

“Sanctions have failed to achieve their objectives, and even the success stories have a mixed record,” said Daniel Wagner, author of the Political Risk Insurance Guide. “Countries have found ways around the sanctions and can counter them.”

“Sanctions are applied to the most complex, intractable problems where the military option is not the solution,” said Thomas Biersteker, a professor at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, who has written extensively on sanctions.

[South China Morning Post]

US Treasury further cracks down on North Korea’s money laundering

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North Korea has been accused of using state-owned corporations and front companies to pay for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. And the U.S. Treasury Department has announced new steps it’s taking to “further isolate North Korea.”

Treasury officials want to prohibit American banks from doing business with North Korean financial institutions. To accomplish that, they’ve designated North Korea a “primary money laundering concern” under the Patriot Act. That designation will require U.S. banks to “implement additional due diligence measures” to make sure North Korean banks don’t get access.

In a statement, Treasury pointed out that, unlike most banks, North Korea’s financial institutions operate with little or no international supervision — making it easier for them to shift money for illicit purposes.

[CNN]

Kim Jong Un still smoking

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been spotted smoking in public for the first time in around two months, despite the country being in the middle of an official anti-smoking campaign.

State media this week showed the country’s Supreme Leader with a cigarette in his right hand during a visit to a children’s camp in Pyongyang. Until now, news reports on Kim’s activities have shown him without his habitual cigarette and an ashtray on a nearby table. He’s known to be a heavy smoker, and BBC analysts say he may have just stopped smoking on official duties for the sake of the cameras.

The sight of Kim smoking comes as a surprise, as the country is in the midst of what state newspaper Rodong Sinmun calls a “brisk” anti-tobacco campaign in a country which has a large smoking population. According to the World Health Organisation, over half of North Korean men were smokers in 2012, South Korean news agency Yonhap says, one of the highest rates in Asia.

[BBC]

China and US reaffirm enforcement of sanctions against North Korea

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China pledged yesterday to work with the US to enforce sanctions against North Korea.

The pledge was made as China and the United States wrapped up their two-day annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue, labelled by officials as most productive in years despite many divisions.

But they disagreed on how to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. The US favors putting more pressure on Pyongyang, while China insists on reviving talks and strongly opposes US deployment of an anti-missile system in South Korea.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also voiced concern over China’s crackdown on lawyers and religious freedom, and a new law’s restrictions on non-governmental organizations.

[South China Morning Post]